29 October 2006
Ronnie ScottsHiromiこと上原ひろみさんのロンドン公演は、昨年7月以来2度目。昨年は同じ老舗ロニー・スコッツで、演奏前に短時間ながらインタビューさせてもらいました。飛行機が遅れて、すごくハードなスケジュールで疲れきっているのに、サウンドチェックのためにピアノに向かうと生き生きと笑顔に!そのエネルギーがすごい。ガッツと根性と指の筋肉で、世界を拓いています。その彼女のCDに励まされ、私自身もロンドンでがんばろう!という気持ちになります。
その後1年で3枚目のアルバム「スパイラル」で大成長し、いまや日本ではすっかり有名になりました。イギリスでもジャズ好きの人には人気がありますが、一般的な知名度はまだ高いとはいえません。でも、ライブに連れて行った友人・知人は、誰もが大ファンになります。もっと聞いて欲しい!という気持ちで、イギリスのジャズ専門誌のウェブに寄稿した記事がこちら:
http://www.jazzwise.com/magazine/060/
This was Hiromi’s second appearance at Ronnie Scotts. Since the last, in July 2005, her third album Spiral has brought her international accolades such as the 2006 Boston Music Award for Best Jazz Act and the Rising Star Award at Cork Jazz Festival, to list just the most recent ones, as well as the Japan Jazz Award of the 39th Jazz Disc Grand Prize, for the best Jazz album by Japanese artists in 2005.
As always, she blew the audience away with her acrobatic piano skill with her opening tune,
XYZ. The ‘policy’ of her gig is that the audience can scream or express emotion at anytime, she said, (which was a bit challenging for the audience of mainly British and Japanese), and she herself turned into a Keith Jarrett, singing along as she played, and banging the keys with her elbows.
Energy and joy pouring out of her tiny frame, she can not be pigeon-holed in one particular music genre. Her classical back ground is obvious in some dynamic pieces (
Spiral), but she also paid musical tribute to Jacky Chen and Bruce Lee (
Return of Kung-fu World Champion) and coquettishly played an old-school ragtime piano solo(
The Tom and Jerry Show).
But the gig was not about showing off her piano skills and styles. The challenge she set herself in her third album was to “stretch the possibility of the trio”, as she told me at a brief interview last year. “I realized that all these instruments can sing the melody as well as playing percussive rhythm.” This led to her ambitious
Music for Three-Piece Orchestra, a jazzy symphony of 4 parts, which the trio played non-stop, Hiromi pushing Martin Valihora on drums and Tony Grey on bass guitar into impressive solos.
Hiromi is a gutsy 27 year-old Japanese girl who constantly stretches her horizons, both musically and geographically. The trio is about to create their new album, to be released next year. They deserve more than just one night in London next time.